Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth are working with the private transportation company Texas Central High-Speed Railway to pursue its goal of transporting riders between the Houston and DFW metro areas in about ninety minutes.

Hundreds of ships navigate the 52-mile channel each day, requiring pilots to engage in a maneuver they have dubbed “the Texas Chicken,” in which “two ships to chart a course for a head-on collision, then swerve right, and use each other’s wave pressure to move safely past.”